What the hell was he thinking?

Everyone knows that I'm a fan of Terry Francona - I think he's done an excellent job. Not perfect, but excellent. And I don't believe in outcome-based second guessing of managerial decisions. You evaluate managerial decisions based on what's knowable at the time the decision is made. Sometimes bad decisions work and good ones don't.

So this isn't second guessing. I wasn't on-line when it happened, so I didn't write before it happened, but I was watching in disbelief when Alex Gonzalez walked to the plate in the 8th inning. With the Sox down by one. With the bases loaded and one out. And Mike Lowell (and Rocco Baldelli) standing in the dugout. And two more infielders available to play a couple of innings at shortstop.

Seriously, what the hell was he thinking? Gathright ran for Ortiz, but no one hit for Gonzalez, he of the career .247 batting average. He of the career .293 OBP. You're going to let him hit in the 8th inning of a game that you're trailing by one, with the bases loaded and one out and September rosters with multiple better hitters available? Against a competitor for the playoff spot? The night after you've had Papelbon come in with no outs in the 8th?

I can't even imagine what kind of behind the scenes situation would justfiy that decision.

Obviously, there's no guarantee whatsoever that hitting for Gonzalez would have resulted in a win. And there was some possibility of Gonzalez getting a hit. But that was a bad decision that worked out badly. And it didn't take any second-guessing to see it.



P.S. - I've never been a fan of NESN's use of "sideline reporters." I think that it adds nothing but interruptions. And Heidi Watney demonstrated her uselessness last night when she talked to Francona post-game and didn't even mention the decision to let Gonzalez hit. Only the single most obvious managerial move to ever not be made.


P.P.S. - By the way, that was one of the quietest "rallies" you'll ever see. The Red Sox sent six men to the plate in the 8th inning last night, scored one run, and never put a ball in play. Out of 36 pitches from four Rays pitchers, four of them were touched by a Red Sox bat, and they were all foul. Three walks, three strikeouts and a Wild Pitch to score a run.

Giving one away...

I'm a big fan of Terry Francona, as I've made clear before. I think that he's done a very good job. I also think that he's hurt the Red Sox tonight. I understand what (I think) he's doing, and it might be that, in the long run, it helps the team as it increases the players' loyalty to him, and responsiveness to him. But I think it was for a bad reason, and it hurt them tonight.

Tim Wakefield had thrown 95 pitches through seven innings and allowed four runs. They played in the afternoon two days ago and didn't play yesterday, so the bullpen is completely rested. But they were trailing, 4-3. Wakefield went back out to start the 8th, not pitching a great game, with 6 better pitchers rested and available. And he went back out there, I'm convinced, for one reason, and one reason only - Terry Francona wants to get him a win, in the misguided belief that that would make him a good choice for the AL All Star team. Which he isn't.

As I said, I don't think it's a good reason, though it may not be, in the long term, a bad thing for the team. But it hurt them tonight, whether they come back and win it or not...

Congratulations, Terry Francona - 500 wins!

When Terry Francona was hired in 2004, I defended him against criticism of his record in Philadelphia. I think that managers can't win without good players, and he didn't have enough of them, whether he used it well or not. I didn't know whether he was the right guy, but I liked what I heard from him, thought he'd probably learned something from his Philadelphia story, and I was willing to give him a chance.

In the last five years, I think he's been one of the very best managers in baseball. I don't agree with every move a manager makes - indeed, I don't think that's possible. Even if I were the manager, I'd probably disagree with 20% of what I came up with. ;-) But I think he's demonstrated an understanding of baseball strategy, an understanding of baseball tactics, and, most importantly, an understanding of when strategic concerns override tactical concerns and vice versa.

So I want to make sure to note, and offer my congratulations on, the 500th win for Terry Francona in a Red Sox uniform, last night in Detroit. He's done a great job, and I expect him to continue doing a great job for years to come.

2007 World Series - Game 2

The game was very different, but the outcome was the same. After putting up 13 runs in game 1, Ubaldo Jimenez and the Rockies bullpen held Boston to 2 runs in game 2. Unfortunately for them, they scored only 1 for the second straight night, and the Red Sox took a 2-0 lead in the series. Game 3, with Daisuke Matsuzaka vs. Aaron Cook, will take place Saturday night in Colorado.

• I liked most of what I heard from Terry Francona when they brought him in almost four years ago. And as I've watched him, I've thought, and still think, that he does an excellent job. When they went to the playoffs in 2004, I thought that he did an outstanding job when the job was difficult, in the ALCS. Not only providing whatever leadership that the manager needs to provide to keep the players loose but still focused, so that they would perform, but tactically. He did not overreact to the brief slumps by Damon and Bellhorn that had people calling for their benching, and he didn't manage the pitching staff the way he managed it during the long season. Once again, this year, he took a lot of abuse from certain segments of the fanbase whenever they lost a game, because he pulled pitchers too soon, or left them in too long, or didn't bring in Okajima or Papelbon soon enough. And again, over the past couple of weeks, we see the virtue of his handling of the team. Cleveland's "aces" were worn out - the Red Sox look fresh.
  
  And in the last 3 games, he's used Okajima to get 4 innings, and 3 2/3 innings. That never happened during the regular season. He has done a great job. The best Red Sox manager in my lifetime.



• While they didn't score many runs, the Red Sox continued to grind on the Rockies pitching staff. Despite the fact that Jimenez only threw 19 pitches through 2 innings, when they knocked him out of the game in the 5th, hise pitch count was up to 91.



• Jacoby Ellsbury is now 1-7 in the World Series, 3-16 in the post-season. Given the size of the Colorado outfield, and the offensive bonus that he's not giving them, it would not surprise me to see Coco Crisp back in center for game 3. They decided before the play-offs started, that Crisp in center gave them a better chance of winning than Ellsbury in center. Crisp struggled, but so has Ellsbury. Given the defensive difference that still exists, I think that it makes sense to go back to Coco.

The Red Sox win the pennant

Odds and ends and thoughts on the ALCS...

• I saw some whining from Cleveland fans about lucky breaks. They were legitimate. The Red Sox, in games 6 and 7, had a bunch of balls that fell in the right place, several infield singles. Of course, they went up 3-1 in the series by virtue of an awful lot of that kind of luck. Look at, to point out one example, the ball that Nixon hit that scored the winning run in game 2. A high pop-up that was just beyond the 2nd baseman, and not hit well enough to reach the center fielder. Look at the double that Sizemore hit to enable the Indians to tie the score in the first inning of game 5. And those weren't the only ones. Everything they hit for three games found a hole. When that dried up, so did the Cleveland offense.



• Apparently the umpires got the call right on the Manny ball in game 5. Which makes that the stupidest ground rule that I've ever seen. The ball was clearly over the wall - it had to hit an inch further on the top to be a HR?



• Cleveland has another legitimate gripe, from last night's game - Kenny Lofton was safe at 2nd. If that call goes the right way, Cleveland ties it in the 5th and it's a very different game.



• One of the things that David Pinto's pre-ALCS analysis (ALCS: Strikeouts are the key to this series) focused on was the strikeout rates of the Indians hitters and Red Sox pitchers, and the number of balls that would not be in play because of that. According to SI, "the Indians struck out more times (63) than a team ever had in an LCS." That makes a difference. Cleveland had a lot of well-placed base hits, but too many times never got the ball in play.



• I spent a day and a half preceding game 6 thinking that the absolute ideal beginning of that game would be JD Drew hitting a 2-out grand slam in the first to give the Red Sox a 4-0 lead. I certainly wasn't expecting it, but that struck me as about the most productive thing that could happen in that first inning. It did. And I may have been right. That game never felt competitive after that swing.



• There was only one game in the ALCS that was decided by fewer than 4 runs. The margins of victory were 7, 7, 2, 4, 6, 10 and 9. But the 9 run game and one of the sevens were actually very competitive. Game 2 was tied through 10 and then the Indians scored 7 in the 11th. Game 7 was a one-run game through 6 1/2 that wasn't tied in the 5th because of an umpiring mistake, and wasn't tied in the top of the 7th because of a coaching/baserunning mistake. Both got out of hand very late. (Actually, that could be said for game 5 as well, though after Boston scored in the third, it never felt as if the Indians were going to score against Beckett.)



• Last Wednesday, there was a hue and cry in the Boston media about who's fault it was. There were calls for Francona's head because a) he brought in Gagne on Saturday, b) he didn't drop Pedroia out of the leadoff spot, c) he didn't play Ellsbury instead of Drew, d) he didn't play Ellsbury instead of Crisp, e) he didn't pitch Beckett on three days rest on Tuesday night, f) he didn't pull Wakefield soon enough, g) he let Wakefield stay too long, h) etc., etc., etc. I addressed some of this at the time, but I wanted to touch on it again, to make a couple of points.
  
  
  1. Terry Francona (un-affectionately known in some circles as "Francoma", which should give you some idea of the intellectual level of the discussion) managed games 5-7, in which the Red Sox outscored the Indians 30-5, exactly the same way that he managed games 2-4, in which the Red Sox were outscored 24-11. The manager can't "make things happen." The players can. All the manager can do is make sure the right players are on the field at the right times, and Francona's been very good at it, even when it hasn't worked.
  
  
  2. If seven games between two teams tells you nothing about the relative quality of the teams, which I believe to be the case, what does three tell you? Nothing. Zip, zero, nada. But the Boston media can't, or won't, understand that, so we end up with Glenn Ordway previewing his "Big Show" on WEEI Wednesday afternoon by saying, "I think we might have to come to the realization - Cleveland's a better team." Maybe they are, but certainly 3 games wouldn't establish that. Based on the entire season, I don't think it's true, but the last week doesn't change my opinion a whit.

So THAT's what they wanted from the manager!

Sometimes, the universe operates as if scripted by someone with an awesome sense of irony. One night after various Francona bashers unloaded on the manager for not bringing in Jon Papelbon to face Russ Adams in the 8th with the bases loaded, Francona brought in Papelbon to face Russ Adams in the 8th with the bases loaded.

Adams hit a grand slam.

I wonder if we'll hear the "the manager gave the game away" comments today...




The Red Sox magic number remains at 9, the lead is down to 1 1/2. The offense has struggled greatly this week, thus far. The bullpen has, as well. Far, far better to do it this week than the week after next. I'll be disappointed if they don't win the division, but in the big picture, it just doesn't matter. The only thing that really batters is getting one of the AL's four play-off spots, and any combination of Red Sox wins and Tigers losses adding to three accomplishes that.

Terry Francona is not a moron.

I've seen and heard a lot of criticism, even condemnation, of Terry Francona for not pulling Gagne after he walked the bases loaded last night. Yes, that was a frustrating game last night. Yes, Gagne has been a disaster. Yes, if your primary goal was winning that game, he should have been pulled before the game-tying walk.

But that obviously isn't the primary goal. Francona's not a moron. If we all can see what's happening, he can see it, too. We've got enough of a track record with him now to be able to understand what's happening. That would never happen in a playoff game. But they aren't playing playoff games yet - they're getting ready to go to the playoffs*. One of the things that they need to do is understand, before they set the rosters, whether Gagne is salvagable or not.

That stunk last night, but going into the post-season with the best record (which they still have, by the way) is not as important as going in with the right roster. As we've seen repeatedly. The only goal of the regular season is to win enough games to be playing in the post-seaons. Period. Sometime in the next few days, the Red Sox will have accomplished that this year.

The last time the team with the best record in baseball won a World Series was in 1998, when the Yankees did it. In the last 5 years, the AL representative in the World Series has gotten into the post-season via the Wild Card 3 times. Last year, the AL sent Detroit to the World Series, a team that led its division all year, had a bigger lead in August than the Red Sox did this year, and ended up losing its division late.

None of that means that I want them to go in as the Wild Card. I haven't given up on the division. I want them to win it, and think that there's some importance to doing so. But it pales in significance to setting the roster. And playing well in the playoffs. Last night's loss, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't mean as much as a win with Gagne getting out of that inning would have. So they left him in.

And prepare yourselves, because it (bringing him into a tight situation late and letting him pitch) is very likely to happen again...


* - And don't even bother with panic talk about how that might keep them out of the playoffs. They're 7 up in the loss column on Detroit with 10 to play, the magic number to clinch a playoff berth is 4. They'll be playing in the playoffs.


Update:
Over at Baseball Prospectus, Joe Sheehan agrees with me (though he's coming at the same question from a different perspective.) [Subscription required]

Look at how Terry Francona has managed his squad all month, in the knowledge that his team is going to October. He’s been resting players all around the roster, diddling with his rotation, and trying experiments like "let’s see how many batters Eric Gagne can walk in one inning." ... I can’t quantify the effects of rest on a player’s performance, but I can say that the cost of doing so—possibly ending up as the wild card versus winning the division—is essentially zero...It doesn’t matter who wins the AL East. It just matters that both the Yankees and the Red Sox stay ahead of the Tigers. As long as both are doing that, there’s no reason to care about who ends up with the better seed.